Nokia N82 review: Comes with xenon

Tham khảo giá Nokia N82 tại

Nokia N82


Nokia N82 is considered the next N-series bestseller and, guess what, it has already hit the shelves. Following the sweeping success of Nokia N73, it was a pretty sure bet that a worthy successor wouldn't take long to appear. As we see it, Nokia N82 fits that description perfectly and our eagerness to test it for you should come as no surprise. So join us as we explore the world of Nokia N82.


Nokia N82 official photos

Key features
5 megapixel camera with auto focus and Carl Zeiss optics
Xenon flash and active lens cover
2.4" 16M color QVGA display
128 MB RAM
Wi-Fi with UPnP
Built-in GPS receiver and A-GPS functionality
Nokia maps application covering over 100 countries worldwide
Convenient standard 3.5 mm audio jack on the top
3G (with HSDPA), EDGE and GPRS support
Symbian OS 9.2 Series 60 3rd edition Feature Pack 1 UI
TV-out functionality
Automatic UI rotation
Stereo speakers
Large capacity battery
Main disadvantages
Controversial design and questionable ergonomics
No RDS for the FM radio
Below average GPS performance
Extra charges apply for voice assisted navigation
No office documents editing application
Doesn't charge off USB
Nokia N73 is said to be the most successful Nseries handset to date, with monstrous sales figures compared to the rest of the N-series lot. N82 comes to succeed it and become the most affordable of feature-loaded Nokia cameraphones. The Finns quote its price at 450 Euro pretax, which sounds reasonable, given the included features and the 2GB of memory card supplied in the package.


Nokia N82 review photos

The almighty Nokia N95 should probably also feel threatened for the lack of the sweet Xenon flash and the auto UI rotation of its N82 sibling. We still believe though the extra 0.2-inch difference in the display size will also play a major role in choosing between these two devices.


Nokia N82 compared to Nokia N95 8GB

Another potential rival is the Sony Ericsson K850 although being a non-OS device actually puts it in a different market niche. Still, it would be wise of cameraphone lovers to carefully consider both devices before purchasing their next handset. So, to them, and any other interested in the qualities of Nokia N82 for whatever reason, our review takes off after the jump.


Nokia N82 all over

Christmas comes early
The retail package of Nokia N82 is as packed as Santa's gift bag. The 2GB microSD card is a nice thingy to start with and it comes complete with a SD adapter. TV-out cable and a microUSB cable are next in line. It's nice to have the microUSB data cable as these are rare enough due to the fact that virtually no other device than a mobile phone makes use of them.

The handsfree is quite stylish but unluckily its remote and headphones cannot be separated so you cannot use the remote with another set of headphones. The box also contains a whole bunch of manuals and quick start guide introducing you to the phone's main features. A CD with the PC sync software is the final ingredient in this delicious retail package recipe.


Nokia N82 retail package

Nokia N82 360-degree spin




Silver all over
Nokia N82 is a bar-shaped phone, measuring 112 x 50.2 x 17.3 mm. With a volume of 90 cc and 114 g of weight the N82 is somewhat on the wrong side of compact. But hey, we're talking 5 megapixel phones and only the LG KU990 Viewty and Samsung G600 are a tad lighter than N82. Plus, it's by all means pocketable, after all.

We are pleased with the build quality of Nokia N82 - no creaks or strange noises detected for the time of our review. Quality materials have been used and we think none of those are likely to appear in the long run.

The phone is finished in silver-tinted plastic with a glossy front and line-patterned back panel. The front panel is quite susceptible to fingerprints but they are not that visible on the silver surface.

Nokia N82 feels great in hand with great weight balance, so slipping off your fingers is quite unlikely.


Nokia N82 in hand - weight is very well distributed and the handset is quite comfortable to hold

By a longstanding tradition, we start our hardware inspection with the front panel. In the upper left corner of Nokia N82 is the ambient light sensor, while the video call camera is placed slightly to its right. The earpiece grill is dead center right above the 2.4" TFT display.


The light sensor, video-call camera and the earpiece right above the display

The D-pad is under the display with the two selection keys on each of its sides. The Menu and the Clear key are under the selection keys, while the Call and End keys are on the very edges of the phone. Finally, the newly adopted by Nokia multimedia key is accommodated between the right selection key and the Clear key.

All these keys are large and convenient enough to render no obstacles to usability. We wished the outer rim of the D-pad was just a bit wider so we won't accidentally press the confirming center now and then when scrolling, but the situation is good enough as it is.


The D-pad could have been a tad wider to completely rule out wrong presses

On the left side of Nokia N82 are the microUSB slot, the memory card slot and the charger plug. The microSD slot has a neat plastic cap but the other two apertures aren't covered in any way, which somewhat spoils this particular side view.


The left side of Nokia N82 - microUSB and microSD slots and a DC charger plug • The memory card slot is covered by a silver lid

The right side hosts a whole bunch of controls. The stereo speakers are placed at its ends, with the zoom/volume key, the review key and the camera key in-between. The speaker placement is the same as on Nokia N95 and is obviously meant for using the handset in landscape mode. With such an advanced camera, it goes without saying that the camera key has half-shutter mode. The review key is a convenient and quick way for jumping to your lastly saved photos.


Nokia N82's right side hosts the stereo speakers, the camera and gallery keys and the volume rocker

Jumping to the Nokia N82's top we find the Power key which, like in all other Symbian phones, is also used for switching profiles and locking the phone. Next to it is the 3.5mm standard audio jack and the neck/wrist strap eyelet. It is quite convenient to have the audio jack at the top, so it is far easier to use with the phone inside a pocket.


The 3.5mm standard audio jack nestled between the Power key and the lanyard eyelet topside

The only thing to find at the bottom is the microphone pinhole.


The bottom of Nokia N82 is pretty plain

"...Standby is quoted at 225 hours, while Nokia claims talk time is 4 and a half hours. Though not necessarily the most impressive figures, the battery is good enough to power the handset for about three days of moderate usage..."

The back side of the N82 is far more interesting and, you have our word, the strange pattern is by far not the only reason. There, we see the 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and the Xenon flash. As it turns out, the flash is the most powerful one we've seen in a mobile phone but this will be discussed later on in the review. The camera also has a lens protecting cover that opens by a small silver slider right above it. It is easy enough to locate with a fingertip and still not prone to accidental sliding.


The 5 megapixel camera and the Xenon flash are the stars backstage

Removing the battery cover you will find the BP-6MT battery with a capacity of 1050 mAh. Standby is quoted at 225 hours, while Nokia claims talk time is 4 and a half hours. Though not necessarily the most impressive figures, the battery is good enough to power the handset for about three days of moderate usage. In our case moderate means about half an hour of talk time and trying different application for about an hour each, plus taking a few shots with the flash on. It is a bit more than what you can expect from Nokia N95-1 for example.


Nokia N82 torn apart • The SIM card slot

Controversial keypad
The alphanumeric keypad of Nokia N82 is surely its most controversial component. The tons of negative feedback the Nokia N91 received for its similar layout does make one wonder why Nokia decided to have another go at it in such a landmark product as the N82.

The ergonomics of the keypad are not as bad as in Nokia N91 mainly because this time it's level with the screen and each row is easy to reach. By no means would we call it good either. The keys are far too small and difficult to distinguish and, generally, typing without looking down is almost impossible. However, because of the ample spacing between keys we are giving it an average score. We still believe Nokia could have done a better job, especially with this particular phone.

The backlighting is even enough and, although not the strongest around, it does a decent job.


The backlighting is even enough but not the strongest of all

Display
Nokia N82 is equipped with a 2.4" TFT LCD display of QVGA resolution. It is capable of showing up to 16 million colors but its quality did not particularly impress us. It does lack some brightness and the colors are a bit washed out compared to Nokia N95 8GB. Otherwise, in bright sunlight it is just as good as any other recent Nokia - the display remains perfectly visible and choosing the right angle to work with it is not in question at all.


Nokia N82's display

Telephony
With N82 signal reception is just what you would expect in a high-end Nokia phone - simply flawless. The vibration is also strong enough to make sure you never miss an incoming call or message. The phone offers brilliant speaker quality and the sound during calls is very clear and without any interferences.


Calling Dexter on Nokia N82

As far as ringing volume is concerned however, the situation is somewhat different. It is by far not the loudest phone around beating only the Apple iPhone among all 33 phones we have tested so far. In all honesty, Nokia N82 seemed to perform a bit better on some extremely high-pitched ringtones but these are hardly ever used anyway. Here is how Nokia N82 ranks among some other tested phones in our loudspeaker test. You can find more info on the actual testing process along with more results here.

Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overal score
Nokia N82 70.2 61.2 65.3 Below average
Apple iPhone (firmware 1.1.1) 67.2 60.2 66.6 Below average
Nokia N95 8GB 75.7 66.2 70.5 Good
Samsung G800 70.7 66.6 73.6 Good
Sony Ericsson K850 71.0 75.7 75.7 Very good


Pure Smart
Nokia N82 runs on Symbian 9.2 OS with the Series60 3rd Edition user interface. The added Feature Pack 1 is no news for Nokia smartphones any more but still deserves mentioning.


Nokia N82 runs on the Symbian 9.2 OS with S60 UI (Feature pack 1 included)

The 128MB of RAM is also an important factor to OS performance. In reality, 128MB is virtually impossible to deplete no matter how hard you try. Unless you do it intentionally, Memory Full warnings are not something you can expect on the Nokia N82 screen.

The phone's main menu has only two different view modes. They are both well known: a 4 x 3 grid of icons and a list. In addition, you can choose whether you prefer your icons animated or not. For some reason the V-shape and Horseshoe views are not available with the recent Nokia handsets we get to test. Font sizes are also configurable depending on your preferences.


Different menu views

Navigating the menus is fast with instant response to key presses and no delays. Most screens of the user interface can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode depending on the user preference. The screen automatically rotates when the phone is turned to the left. However, it sometimes won't rotate straight away and needs a gentle shake before switching between view modes. The screen rotation is as fast as in Nokia N95 8GB - that is almost instant. Nokia hasn't included any animation for the screen rotation - as seen in Apple iPhone - the screen just goes black for a second and pops back up in the desired mode.

"...Navigating the menus is fast with instant response to key presses and no delays. Most screens of the user interface can be displayed in both portrait and landscape mode depending on the user preference. The screen automatically rotates when the phone is turned to the left..."

The blue circle next to the icon of a running application is a well known Symbian indication reminding users to quit unwanted applications that are still running in the background. Luckily, the days when there was only a single alarm slot and the voice recorder was limited to a miserly minute are now long gone.


Multiple alarms can be activated on Nokia N82, each with its own repetition interval and due day

The active stand-by display is naturally also present with Nokia N82. This is a nice and convenient way to bring shortcuts to all favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access. The two soft keys functions can also vary. As the standard keypad lock pattern is a quick successive pressing of the left selection key and the asterisk , when the left kay is pressed in a normal day-to-day usage it will wait for about a second before acting as assigned to see if a lock command is to follow.


Active stand-by display on Nokia N82 holds a huge number of shortcuts

Otherwise, the automatic key lock is activated after a pre-defined period. The options are from 5 seconds to an hour and you can switch this feature off if you see fit.

The built-in memory is 132MB, which is a respectable figure by all means. The included 2GB microSD memory card comes in very handy for extending it but you can go for an even higher capacity card as user reports suggest. Accessing applications or any other files from the memory card is quick and you probably won't notice any difference compared to accessing ones from the phone memory.

The multimedia menu is among Nokia N82's highlights as seems to be the case with all other recent Nseries models. It is launched by pressing the dedicated key and provides quick access to the multimedia features of the handset. It is identical to the ones found on Nokia N81 and Nokia N95 8GB, with icons sorted thematically. They appear as drop-down menus when the respective tab is selected. If you find the menu layout unsuitable, you can freely rearrange icons until you're pleased with the result.


The multimedia menu tabs can be freely reordered according to the user's needs

As with any Symbian phone, there is a built-in voice recognition system. It is doing an amazing job, being fully speaker-independent and recognizing a remarkably high percentage of the user commands. Its performance can be matched only by Nokia N95 and N95 8GB.


Voice recognition system on Nokia N82 is simply great